The Last Legion Opens to Mediocre Reviews

The Last Legion, starring Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley, is not only an Arthurian adventure in the tradition of Excalibur, it's also an ancient-Rome spectacular in the tradition of "Gladiator." The mixture is proving less than appetizing to the relatively few critics who have bothered to review the film.

Nathan Rabin, of The Onion, writes, "Though it's never wise to underestimate the power or universal appeal of [Aishwarya] Rai's cleavage and lustrous hair, that's about all that sets the doggedly mediocre The Last Legion apart from every other sword-and-sandal epic about the origins of Camelot."

Joe Leydon, of Variety, thinks the movie is "seriously hampered by glaring inconsistencies of tone and intent, and often feels like a series of highlights carved out of a much longer epic."

Liam Lacey, of The Globe and Mail (Toronto) thinks the movie "seems to have been dragged out of the vaults of some early-sixties TV series."